Chen had always felt as though his consciousness were sunk in thick mud—heavy, sluggish, indistinct.Then a faint prick of pain flared at the back of his neck, and his vision snapped sharply back into focus.
The first thing that burned into his retinas was red.
Brilliant, violent red.
Yan Qing were drained of all color, his face ashen white. Blood spilled endlessly from the corner of his mouth, the contrast grotesquely vivid.
“Yan Qing…?”
Chen called out tentatively, disoriented, confused by how close the human suddenly was.
Then he felt it.
Something was wrong with his right hand.
He looked down.
His entire arm was buried deep in Yan Qing’s chest.
No—
How… could this have happened?
“You really are…”Yan Qing’s blood-stained lips curved upward slightly. His voice was weak, broken, yet oddly gentle.“…the dumbest alien I’ve ever met.”
A faint laugh slipped out with the words.“…Falling for… something like this… such a stupid… trap…”
The arms that had been looped weakly around Chen’s neck slipped away.The injector containing the sedative fell from Yan Qing’s hand and clattered softly to the floor.
Chen watched in horror as Yan Qing’s eyes slowly closed—those black eyes he loved most.
“No… no—!!!”
He had never wanted to hurt him.
That was why he had not forcibly dragged Yan Qing into his own domain. That was why Chen had come to Yan Qing’s world instead—to see him, to stay near him.
And yet—
The one person he had sworn never to harm—
Was dying by his own hand.
For the first time in his life, Chen felt despair crash over him like a tidal wave. His mind went blank, completely empty.
“Your Majesty!”
Xiao rushed to his side, breathless.“Yan Qing can still be saved! If we get him back to my ship, I can bring him back to life!”
“Saved…?”
Chen turned slowly, as if the words barely reached him.
“Saved…?”
“Yes!”
“Bring the ship here,” Chen said immediately.
Dad… where are Mom and Dad… I’m thirsty…
Just a moment, son. Mom is already in God’s care. We’ll go to her soon. Let me get the demon out of you first.
Dad…
A ten-year-old boy lay bound to a bed.
A man poured chemical liquid over the child’s body.
The fumes evaporated and entered his lungs.
The boy began coughing violently.
It hurts! Dad—let me go!
Come out of my son, demon!
Police! Don’t move! Hands up!
Let me go! I haven’t saved my son yet! There’s a demon inside him! Hahaha—HAHAHA—
The man laughed wildly as officers restrained him.
“How is he?”
Chen stared anxiously at the medical pod.
Yan Qing floated within, suspended in fluid. Tubes fed directly into the cavity in his chest, artificially maintaining circulation where his shattered heart had once been.
Xiao examined the readouts.
“His vital functions are within human-safe parameters. But I need to reconstruct his heart. The problem is—I don’t have access to embryonic stem cells. Yan Qing only has postnatal stem cells, and hearts grown from those age rapidly.”
“Use mine.”
Xiao froze.“What?”
“Our genetics contain a sequence that allows somatic cells to revert to a primordial state,” Chen said evenly.“Take a sample from Yan Qing. I will perform the gene grafting myself.”
“Your Majesty—that code exists only in your brain tissue. The risk—”
“Do it.”
Grandpa… where are Mom and Dad?
Your mother is somewhere safe.
What about Dad?
He’s gone. He won’t hurt you anymore.
But I want to see them…
Come live with Grandpa from now on, Yan Qing.
Okay…
The boy cried quietly, tears soaking his small face.
Can I play with you?
A child’s voice came from against the light.
Yan Qing opened his eyes.
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“Where… am I?”
Soft blue light greeted him. He coughed violently, lungs burning as though he had nearly drowned. Pain flared through his chest, sharp and disorienting, and for a moment he could not tell whether he was alive or simply remembering how it felt to be.
The last thing he remembered was Chen’s face.
Blood. Shock. Horror.
His hand flew to his chest.
Whole.
Unbroken.
A seam unfolded in the wall, resolving into a doorway.
“You need rest,” Xiao. Tian. Xiao said as he entered. The artificial lighting threw sharp shadows across his face, flattening his features into something carefully neutral.
“Where’s Chen?” Yan Qing asked immediately. “How is he?”
The unfamiliar Teleopean paused, just long enough for Yan Qing to notice.
“He is alive,” Xiao said carefully. “And uninjured.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Xiao met his gaze.“He did not want to frighten you.”
Yan Qing blinked. The image rose unbidden: blood streaked across Chen’s face, the stunned stillness in his eyes, the way his breath had caught as if the pain belonged to him.
Xiao adjusted the medical readouts and continued as though nothing were amiss.“You’ve been unconscious for several hours. Your condition is stable.”
“And Chen?” Yan Qing pressed.
Xiao finished his checks and straightened.“He has confined himself to the command section.”
“Confined?”
“Voluntarily.”
Yan Qing did not reply.
Xiao inclined his head and left.
Yan Qing did not see Chen that day.
The ship’s artificial cycle dimmed and brightened again. He drifted in and out of shallow sleep, pain kept at bay by medication, hunger replaced by nutrient infusion. Each time he woke, the space beside his medical platform remained empty.
No watchful silence.
Chen was not there.
At first, Yan Qing told himself it was for the best. He had nearly died. Anyone sane would keep distance after that.
But memory was not so easily managed.
He remembered the weight behind Chen’s strike. The moment before pain, before awareness vanished. He remembered the look on Chen’s face when clarity returned, horror eclipsing everything else.
Chen had not tried to explain.
He had broken.
That stayed with Yan Qing longer than the wound.
When he woke again, the lights had shifted. Another cycle had passed.
A full day.
The realization settled slowly, bringing with it an unexpected tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with surgery.
Good, a voice in him said.You’re safe. Distance is sensible.
Another voice, quieter and more stubborn, answered:Avoidance isn’t the same as safety.
He was afraid.
Not of death. Not even of Chen, exactly.
He was afraid of what it meant that Chen could lose control like that. Afraid of what it meant that he still cared.
When Xiao returned to check his vitals, Yan Qing watched him work in silence for a long moment.
“How long has it been?” Yan Qing asked at last.
“A little over a day,” Xiao replied.
Yan Qing nodded once.
“And Chen?”
Xiao’s hands paused, barely perceptible.“He remains in the command section.”
Yan Qing exhaled slowly.
A day of distance, then. A day of restraint. Of Chen choosing absence instead of hovering, instead of intrusion.
That mattered.
“Xiao,” Yan Qing said quietly.
“Yes?”
“I want to see him.”
Xiao looked at him carefully.“Are you certain?”
Yan Qing met his gaze.“No,” he said honestly. “But I don’t want this decided by avoidance.”
Xiao studied him for a moment longer, then inclined his head.“I will inform him.”
Chen did not enter at once.
Yan Qing sensed him first. A stillness at the threshold, deliberate and contained, as though crossing it required permission Chen was not certain he had earned.
“You can come in,” Yan Qing said without turning his head. “I’m not made of glass.”
A pause followed, long enough to register as choice rather than hesitation.
Then Chen stepped inside.
He looked smaller, not from injury or weakness, but from contraction. His shoulders were set, his posture guarded, gaze fixed on the floor as though eye contact itself carried risk.
“I was told you wished to see me,” Chen said.
“Yes.”
Silence stretched, unhurried and intact.
Yan Qing turned and looked at him fully. Chen did not return the gaze.
“You stayed away,” Yan Qing said.
“I did not want to frighten you,” Chen replied. “Or impose.”
“You already frightened me,” Yan Qing said evenly. “Distance doesn’t undo that.”
Chen’s fingers tightened once at his side, then stilled.
“But,” Yan Qing continued, “leaving without explanation doesn’t help either.”
Chen looked up, startled, as though the possibility had not occurred to him.
“I needed time,” Yan Qing said. “To think. To process the rather unpleasant experience of nearly dying.”
Chen’s breath caught. He said nothing.
“And?” he asked at last, the word measured, careful not to demand.
Yan Qing did not answer immediately.
The silence that followed was not empty. It was occupied by memory, by consequence.
Yan Qing watched Chen avert his gaze again, as though the weight of it were intolerable.
“I also wanted to know if you’re all right,” Yan Qing said quietly.“Why won’t you look at me?”
Chen’s eyes lifted despite himself. For an instant, the control slipped. Sorrow bled through the molten gold of his gaze, dense and unfiltered, too much held back for too long.
He drew a slow breath and forced it down, locking the expression away with visible effort.
“You should rest,” he said. The words were steady, but the calm trembled at the edges.
Yan Qing blinked, as though recalibrating. Then he exhaled and continued.
“Xiao already told me,” he said. “You can stop hiding behind procedural concern.”
“…I’m sorry.”
The apology came out of Chen like a constricted breath, inadequate and stripped bare, as though he had searched for language that could bear the truth and found only that small surrender.
Yan Qing studied him.
Then, unexpectedly, he smiled. Faint. Real.
“I thought you’d say ‘I’m back.’”
Chen looked up, genuinely startled.“Why would you expect that?”
“I’m not petty,” Yan Qing replied mildly. “You didn’t think I was, did you?”
“No,” Chen said at once, too quickly.
Yan Qing’s expression tightened, not with anger, but with focus.
“It was your fault,” he said, voice rising despite himself. “You walked straight into an obvious trap. You let yourself get torn apart and nearly killed everyone around you. That part is not debatable.”
Chen absorbed it without flinching.
“But,” Yan Qing continued, lowering his voice, “you didn’t seem to consider that if something happened to you—”
He stopped, then finished quietly.
“—I would be worried.”
Something shifted in Chen’s eyes. Not relief. Not absolution. Recognition.
“You’re my responsibility,” Yan Qing added quickly, as though clarifying a premise. “I pulled you out of a parallel universe. I don’t get to pretend you don’t matter.”
Chen’s mouth curved into a small, careful smile, as if testing whether the expression was still permitted.
Yan Qing cleared his throat, the moment threatening to linger too long.
“Besides,” he said, tone shifting with intent, “I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of money keeping you fed.”
Chen blinked.“…What?”
“You eat expensive food,” Yan Qing said. “Imported protein, specialized supplements, whatever obscure Teleopean nutrient you’ve decided is essential this week to fuel your ridiculous blog. None of it is cheap.”
Chen hesitated. “I can stop.”
“That’s not the point,” Yan Qing said. “The point is I’ve invested two years of savings into you.”
He glanced away, then back again.
“And I expect a return. A scientific one.”
Chen tilted his head slightly. “In what form?”
“Your technology,” Yan Qing said without hesitation. “You’ve shown me fragments. I want more. Something I can actually study. Reverse-engineer.”
Chen considered this with solemn care.
“You wish for an exchange.”
“I’m a scientist,” Yan Qing replied. “Of course I do.”
Chen’s lips curved, restrained but unmistakable.
“Very well,” he said. “I will explain more. And show you the theory behind it.”
Yan Qing arched a brow. “Does that make you feel better?”
“That,” Chen said calmly, “depends on how much you spent feeding me.”
Yan Qing laughed, soft and genuine, and the tension in the room finally loosened.
Later, when Chen leaned a little closer—
“Hey,” Yan Qing said. “What are you doing?”
“Faszama deo luosz,” Chen murmured, voice low, tentative.“May I continue living with you while settling all the mess, my landlord?”
Yan Qing hesitated, then nodded.
“Sure,” he said. “But… is it really safe?”
“It will be,” Chen replied. “I will be more careful.”
North of New York City — 30 kilometers
In a room reeking of chemical fluid, biological specimens lay scattered like debris after a storm.
One of them twitched.
A ruined hand dragged itself free.
Bone gleamed white beneath shredded flesh.
“Hssss—”
